Steps

The photograph shows the Chem. 125 lecture hall of Dalhousie University. Its title is a minor lecture on meaning: Compare, for instance, the first stanza of Hermann Hesse's famous poem "Stufen" ("steps" or "levels"): Like ev'ry flower wilts, like youth is fading and turns to age, so also one's achieving: Each virtue and each wisdom needs parading in one's own time, and must not last forever. The heart must be, at each new call for leaving, prepared to part and start without the tragic, without the grief - with courage to endeavor a novel bond, a disparate connection: for each beginning bears a special magic that nurtures living and bestows protection. [ Translation: © Walter A. Aue Source: myweb.dal.ca/waue/Trans/0-TransList.html ]